Zelph, the White Lamanite, and Other Oddities

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James White director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 973 4602 or toll-free across the United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. And now with today's topic here is James White.

Opening Banter and Website Updates

And good morning. Welcome to the dividing line on a Tuesday morning the 15th of January. The first month of 2008 is already halfway over. Can you believe that I can time goes goes very very quickly I have for 30 seconds this morning thought maybe possibly might be able to say something today, but Then the only person that can tell me when I can say anything Disappeared and has not called me back and I can't get hold of him.

So oh Well We keep trying so who knows what when when that's going to be. That's just how it is. I was on issues etc I say by the way, eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is the phone number doing all these video blogs.

You know people whine and complain That we don't turn my blog into an internet ignorance aggregator Where everybody gets to hide behind their keyboards and make nasty comments and waste my time with irrelevant commentary and facile refutation and I Have often pointed out There are a few people who post on the internet Who are more easily accessible?

Electronically than I am. I just don't think I have any Compulsion whatsoever any reason whatsoever to take The website that we maintain well that we provide for and We'll soon maintain a real nice one someday in the I Predict before my birthday that we're gonna have that We're gonna have a thing up, you know, I kept you know, I keep hearing yeah Bye birthday.

Bye Christmas. Bye New Year's by this bed and Baba Baba and it's just like it's now the halfway through January and here We said in fact Stephen D came and showed you see Stephen.

Yeah, this this is getting contagious because it's not just the website. This is happening. Now. It's the big announcement.

Oh, yeah, I tell you but and I don't know either one.

Maybe we should tell them the truth about the big announcement, which is what?

The big announcement is the website will be changed by summer. Yeah, we can't make the big announcement.

I've been hunting voraciously on eBay for a kazoo. In order to. Until we get the kazoo we Are dozens of kazoos on eBay if you ever look. I keep getting outbid. I mean, they're in demand, you know.

Must be what it's about. Nasty, I'm totally lost. Oh, yes a website. Yes, we I don't see any reason why yeah. You almost almost got me a sidetracked there from pointing out that it's now halfway through January and we still don't have a new website.

Did you see Stephen D came in the channel the guy who who originally designed the template we've had now for eight years and.

Let's let's give credit where credit's due. I don't know if it's actually credit, but he designed the Pics GIFs and stuff like that. I actually put the template together. Okay.

He designed he designed the look and you put it all together and. That was so long ago now that We're talking we're getting we're moving toward the decade thing here, you know. The joke used to be that That we're so we're so old we become retro and which is the new cool.

So, well, if we really wanted to go retro we'd go back to 1996. But a lot of folks may not realize this. We've been on the web since November of 1996. Really is when we went on the web and we met 387 dot tech.

No, no, no. No, that was 1994 95.

I do. I still remember the URL. It was a page. So it was black animated GIFs and swirly stuff.

When we when when my old roommate first designed the original Website it had this giant page counter at the bottom in black background green letters and Every single page had a MIDI file that play. Oh, yeah funky little music.

Yeah Yeah, things have changed all day so, you know, hey, you know if you really want to put it in perspective It's still very modern.

But You know when you have to when you have to compare it to net 3 to 7 dot Texas net to make it modern. That's pretty sad. That's all I can say. But anyway Back to the point I was making and that is I don't have any desire to turn my website Into a means for all of these nasty people from whatever religion they are a part of To post their nasty grams about me.

They've there's plenty of space in the internet to Kind of thing and so I've been putting up these video blogs and you would think That the easiest way to respond would be to pick up a phone and dial eight seven seven seven five three three three four one.

I certainly make myself available in that way, but it's amazing. The vast difference between folks who will invest a tremendous amount of time in writing Something and putting it on the web and those who will actually have to interact with me I think it's a good filter, you know, it sort of separates what's meaningful from what isn't and that doesn't mean every calls meaningful.

We've had a few that we could have skipped but That generally is I think a good direction to go. So if you have some comments positive or negative on the video blogs that I began putting up just recently You will Have an opportunity eight seven seven seven five three three three four one.

I was on issues, etc yesterday and Say question was asked that I I find rather interesting to deal with and we haven't talked about this in a while. So I thought I would do so. And that is I was asked about the changes that have been made in the introduction To the Book of Mormon by the Mormon Church of late and if you're not familiar with this It's not a it's not a major change in the sense of total rewrite or anything like that.

But generally when Mormonism makes a big change they do it in a small way. For example back after 1978 The next edition of the Book of Mormon that came out the Book of Mormon had talked about the Nephites or the Lamanites and The Nephites and Lamanites for those of you who've not read the Book of Mormon are allegedly the two major group of offspring of Nephi and Laman they came over from Jerusalem and the Indians are their descendants and so on so forth and The Nephites were the mainly godly people the Lamanites were the ungodly people so God cursed the Lamanites with a dark skin as a sign of their their evil and There's a promise in the Book of Mormon that if they would repent and would follow after Christ.

That over time they would become a white and delightsome people. Well after the priesthood was given to blacks the next edition of the Book of Mormon that comes out says that they would be a pure and delightsome people and of course you'd go back and you could find where like people like Spencer W Kimball had Made reference to this text and had gone to Indian reservations that had come back and report about how the converts.

You could even you could tell who the converts children were. Because they're becoming white and delightsome. They were lighter than the other kids. Oh, is that oh is that politically incorrect? Oh goodness?

This is back in the 40s and 50s though where it wasn't nearly as politically incorrect as now so anyway I Can't be all that in mind. It it is very clear to me that Joseph Smith believed that the Book of Mormon story took place all across North America.

It certainly took place in upstate New York because there is a big old honking battle at the hill Camora and it basically is the final battle and that's where Moroni buries the golden plates and the whole story is wrapped up in ad -421 and New York is a long way from Central America wouldn't want to have to walk that one and so today Mormonism is a little embarrassed by the Book of Mormon on many on many grounds and let's face.

It's badly written book. It's very poorly written. It is when you read the 1830 edition, it's it's really poorly written and The Viewpoint that it presents the ancient inhabitants this hemisphere just isn't anything like what we know the ancient inhabitants this hemisphere was one of the major differences between the Bible the Book of Mormon when the Bible describes the ancient inhabitants of Israel lo and behold we you know dig up all sorts of evidence of The fact that that's exactly where they were so anyway It seems like the Mormon Church is is really Trying to find a way to defend itself in this day and it's it's very difficult for them to do.

The Book of Abraham has been you know, just a massive failure for them. The defenses that have been offered by certain people in Mormonism the Book of Abraham are simply laughable. They they're they're so stretched the the credulity level that it's it's difficult to even begin to interact with them with a straight face but.

Then you had the discussion of DNA coming out and The reality that the Indians are not Jews. Okay they you do not see chief chief Finkelstein in on the reservations anywhere and It just seems so obvious but you know.

That's literally what Joseph Smith thought is that they were the descendants of Jews and They're not so they're mongoloid and you can tell that I mean you you could sort of look at him. You look at the American Indian you look at the Eskimo.

You look at folks in Asia and you go. Hey, that's a family resemblance there, you know I mean sort of obvious but DNA comes along and says yep. Yep. Yep. That's that. Mm-hmm. That's where they came from and.

And obviously those questions have been asked of of the Mormon Church and so I think we're seeing I've said the only thing I can see the church doing eventually the Mormon Church doing eventually is Turning the Book of Mormon into a parable.

I mean look at look at what they had to do with the Book of Abraham they had to come up with ideas like these words were meant to Trigger these ancient memories in Joseph Smith's mind and. And that's where the Book of Abraham really came from was these primeval thoughts.

You know stuff like this and that's not what Joseph Smith said. But hey, you know, we we now know that he didn't get a single word right in the Book of Abraham. So You got to come up with something and I've often said that about the only direction the Mormon Church has to go is to to turn the Book of Mormon from being What Joseph Smith said it was and and that was a work of history written in this hemisphere by the ancient inhabitants this hemisphere into some sort of a parable and You know some sort of you know, it does contain the great dream and stuff like that and so why not just make the whole thing a dream and That way you can you know try to find a way around these things now I realize That everybody around Manti, Utah would would have a complete meltdown if anything like that were to happen, obviously.

But I just don't see any direction other direction they can go the the Book of Mormon just isn't true. It's not a historical document. It doesn't have any any connection to to history. It didn't happen it's a work of fiction a bad work of fiction at that and so What are they gonna do so the DNA stuff comes out and I think we're starting to see The church leadership reacting and what I mean by that is like I said the change of white to pure.

Not a big change in the sense of you know, didn't rewrite a whole chapter, but it signaled a big change in leadership so what's the change in the In the introduction to the Book of Mormon. Well Here's what it used to say after thousands of years all were destroyed except the Lamanites and They are the ancestors of the American Indians.

Now it says after thousands of years all were destroyed except the Lamanites and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians one little word but all the Vista of Apologetic defense that is opened by the insertion of one Little word because you see when you say they are among the ancestors.

You see what you can do. And this is this seems to be the direction they're going a number of years ago one of the BYU scholars suggested that the entire Book of Mormon story took place in only a 40 square mile area not all of North America and certainly not in upstate, New York but it took place in maybe a 40 square mile area in the area of Mesoamerica in some place and because the idea the Probabilities of ever stumbling across this tiny little area would be remotely small so that way you can just say oh, hey There were all these other, you know the regular American Indians are out there and we can we can go with what the world says about them and they didn't have horses and chariots and and Steel swords and stuff like that.

There was just this one little area that was just super advanced and Somehow only they had horses. I'm not sure I guess the horses just never got away they had very good carousel and could never get away and nobody else good and Evidently none of these other cultures knew anything about them.

They're in this, you know it's sort of like one of those secret valley things that no one ever goes in and and you know lost world or something I don't know and so You have this kind of stuff going on and so what they're saying now is is if that's the case Then if they're they were among the ancestors the American Indians.

Then they're just a small little smidgen and they wouldn't show up in the DNA map because there's such a small element of The ancestry of the American Indians so we can accept the documented fact the American Indian Is not semitic but mongoloid in in extraction and we can now say oh, yes, that's right.

But we still have this one small group and in essence No one knows what happened to them or anything else and somehow their record was written on golden plates and somehow Got transported somehow from Central America all the way to the hill Camorra where somehow Joseph Smith a treasure seeker Somehow managed to locate them in 1827 or so and somehow that's how it all worked and But what I want to read I was trying to find I was trying to bring up I just reinstalled the gospel link program in the thing.

I can't find it in the start menu. Gone, you got too many programs in your computer when you're sitting there going. Okay, is it an accessory something up application? It's probably utilities someplace, you know, it ended up in some sub directories and I don't know where it went.

But so I couldn't find it. So I just googled I googled Zelf the white Lamanite. Yes Zelf the white Lamanite and I came across an article right off the top by none other than one of our favorite people in all the world Sandra Tanner and when you find Sandra Tanner wrote it it she's done a good job and It was contained the exact reference that I knew I was going to need and I wanted to read to you.

And it's a story this and a lot of stories like this if you sit down with a documentary history of the church sometime six volumes that It's it is quite the interesting read. There's no no tways about I've not met very many Mormons who have actually read the documentary History of the church.

I certainly haven't read all of it. It's rather boring at times, but some very fascinating stuff that you can dig out and Here's one of the stories while Zion's camp was marching on the way to Jackson County, Missouri near the bank of the Illinois River which is in Illinois.

Which just want to make sure you understand the Illinois River is not in Columbia. Okay, this is we're not talking in Central and America here. We're talking about, Illinois because to my knowledge Joseph Smith never went to Central America.

They came to a mound contain the skeleton of a man now. Burial mounds were very common back in the day before expansion westward by the the white settler and Indians would bury their dead in mounds and this caused all sorts of speculations when you come across an area there are a bunch of burial mounds and Since anthropology at the time was in its infancy.

That this is why people thought well, these are lost ten tribes of Israel and all sorts of stuff like this. So Here is the citation from LDS sources the Brethren procured a shovel and a hoe and removing the earth to the depth of about one foot.

Discovered the skeleton of a man almost entire and between his ribs the stone point of a Laman itish arrow. Remember, they referred the American Indians as Lamanites a Laman itish arrow. Which evidently produced his death elder Burr Riggs retained the arrow.

The contemplation of the scenery around us produced peculiar sensations in our bosoms and Subsequently the visions of the past being open to my understanding by the spirit of the Almighty. I discovered that the person whose skeleton was before us was a white Lamanite a large thick-set man and a man of God.

His name was Zelf. He was a warrior and chieftain under the great prophet Anandagas who was known from the hill Kimora or Eastern Sea to the Rocky Mountains. The curse was taken from Zelf or at least in part.

One of his thigh bones was broken by a stone flung from a sling while in battle years before his death he was killed in battle by the arrow found among his ribs during the last great struggle of the Lamanites and the Nephites and quote.

That's Joseph Smith. I. One of the first things that I was fascinated to discover upon reading this was that Gil Grissom was a Mormon. I did not know this and he looks so young on CSI. I'm sorry, but you know.

His leg was broken by a sling and and and all this. You know the spirit told me all this stuff, and I'm just like oh my goodness. Okay, right all right, so. The point is twofold first of all you're in Illinois, and you've got a white Lamanite.

That means the Lamanites are not stuck in a 40 square mile area in Central America. I know the farms wants to limit them to that area. But it it's just it doesn't work. It's not not not gonna not gonna function for us and then notice this prophet.

And this warrior he's a warrior chieftain under the great prophet Anand Agus who was known from where Hill Camorra that's upstate, New York to the Eastern Sea or Eastern Sea to the Rocky Mountains. That's America kids.

That's from the Eastern Sea the Rocky Mountains. That's where his fame was that's mean that's means and Joseph Smith's understanding. That's where the Book of Mormon story took place. I mean if you're gonna.

It's not like this guy lived 5 ,000 years ago, and we're trying to piece together what he may have thought about his writings. This wasn't that long ago, and he's left us all sorts of documentation as to what he thought these things were.

There's other evidence that Sandra Tanner mentions here. Elder Heber C. Kimball also mentioned Zelf he says while on our way. We felt anxious to know who the person was who had been killed by that arrow by the way.

If this guy was from like Fort This would have been what? 1 ,400 years later his skeleton is not one foot down folks hello. Anyway. It was made known to Joseph that he had been an officer who fell in battle in the last destruction among the Lamanites and his name was Zelf.

This caused us to rejoice much to think that God was so mindful of us as to show these things to his servant. Brother Joseph had inquired the Lord, and it was made known in a vision, so I mean this is even this is claimed to be revelation from God about Zelf the white Lamanite and then interestingly enough we have another from the Travels of the Kirtland camp.

Listen to this it says the camp passed through Huntsville and Randolph County, Missouri which has been appointed as one of the stakes of Zion and is the ancient site of the city of Manti and Pitched tents at Dark Creek salt licks 17 miles.

It was reported the camp that 110 men had volunteered from Randolph and had gone to far west to settle difficulties. The point is That here in Missouri is the ancient site of the city of Manti. Samuel D. Taylor likewise made reference this September 25th 1838 would pass through Huntsville County seat of Randolph County population 450 and three miles further we bought 32 bushels of corn off of one of the brethren who resides in this place.

There are several of brethren around about here and this is the ancient site of the city of Manti which is spoken of in the Book of Mormon and This is appointed one of the stakes of Zion and is Randolph County, Missouri three miles west of the county seat.

So What was the belief of early Mormons on this subject? That the Book of Mormon was one little teeny tiny spot will never find in Mesoamerica new. These burial mounds were the burial mounds created by the Nephites and the Lamanites.

Zulf the white Lamanite Was there. There's no indication that his his poor skeleton had been transported from Mesoamerica to Illinois. Just simply to give Joseph Smith a reason to talk about him or anything else.

What's obvious is probably this poor Indian they dug up had died you know within two or three years earlier and They they dug him up and turned him into Zulf the white Lamanite and. So the saga goes on as to how Mormonism can withstand its journey outside of the safe warm confines of Utah in the modern era.

The reason that Mormonism has survived as long as it has Was because for most of its history it was a regional religion in an area that just simply Was not exposed to a lot of critical thinking and examination of its claims.

And when that critical thinking examination has come to the fore we see Mormonism's attempt to constantly Restrict the target you get to shoot at we're gonna make our target smaller and smaller and I'm telling you the Mormonism that I encountered when I first started studying Mormonism and The people that I talked to and the leaders and the missionaries and the regular old Mormons out in Mesa, Arizona in the 1980s Are a dying breed.

They are being replaced by a much less confident must much less forthright Mormonism. And that's why its numbers are flat. That's why it's its growth is natural growth. Just the number of kids you're having.

You're losing as many people as you're birthing into the thing and That's they know that but they don't know what to do about it. And that's what we're seeing taking place these days eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is the phone number and Alan's online and you can get online as well.

Alan has questions on Islam that we'll be glad to take after we take our break today. And we'd be happy to line up other callers as well on the subject of Islam Mormonism Jehovah's Witnesses some of you saw the Video, I just post someone called it a vlog.

I like that vlog video log vlog instead of a blog. It's a vlog I like that. That's that's not bad a Vlog or whatever you want to call it or vid blog or you know, who cares? It's a nice way of communicating something and You know, the only complaint people have is you can't cut and paste and use it yourself.

You can embed it but it's not quite the same thing but it is very enjoyable for me to do and Hopefully especially as my time gets more and more scarce in the future as I work in the area of the Islamic doctoral studies.

That kind of format will still allow me to have communication with folks without taking quite as much time to do it. So I just put one up on a very kind little note. Actually, obviously I post these on My on my YouTube page.

And so if you're if you go to the YouTube page, you'll always see the most current thing up, but Then I post it on the blog, but I don't post it right at the same time. So for most folks The easiest way is just to wait till it appears on the blog And watch it then but the people who just can't Handle the idea that there's something you haven't seen yet.

They can go to my YouTube page and you'll see everything that's that's currently available. Right now for example, I have one that's scheduled to appear. I Think Thursday morning right at midnight or something like that.

But it's already on the YouTube page. So some people who just you know are sort of Internet oriented might want to do it that way. Otherwise, just don't worry about it. Wait till it appears in the blog and We can go that way.

But there's currently one up about a nice kind letter that was sent to me instructing me to repent of my non King James only ism and It was sent to the church. And so I took the time to look at least one of the texts That was cited as an illustration of how bad modern perversions are and that was Colossians 114 Explained the textual critical issues the fact that the earliest Greek manuscript containing the reading in the King James from the 9th century and Where it came from and so on so forth.

And so that's that's on the the vlog Even as we speak, so if you have a questions about that kind of stuff eight seven seven seven five three three three four One I wanted it nice and slowly. Because when you get used to a number you can say it way too fast and then people when they actually want to call don't remember so.

Anyways, we're gonna take our take our break and be back with Alan and your calls right after this everyone. This is rich Pierce.

In a day and age where the gospel is being twisted into a man-centered self-help program The need for a no-nonsense presentation of the gospel has never been greater. I am convinced that a great many go to church every Sunday yet.

They have never been confronted with their sin. Alpha-Omega ministries is dedicated to presenting the gospel in a clear and concise manner making no excuses. Man is sinful and God is holy. That sinful man is in need of a perfect Savior and Jesus Christ is that perfect Savior?

We are to come before the Holy God with an empty hand of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Alpha and Omega takes that message to every group that we deal with while equipping the body of Christ as well.

Support Alpha Omega ministries and help us to reach even more with the pure message of God's glorious grace. Thank you. Public crimes the criminal mishandling of God's Word may be James White's most provocative book yet.

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There you go folks. So we want to get your Christmas shopping started early, so January 15th.

Spot coming in there, and I'm like how do you stop that? Like it keeps coming and coming and I'm trying okay skip over it. Inevitability.

Agent Smith was right behind rich and says that's the sound of inevitability. You Can't stop the Christmas commercial it's gonna play and everybody's gonna know who did it I? Love it great stuff. Well.

I would like to Be able to pop Alan up, but I don't know what's going on with this thing. I Need a new tablet. I use a little tablet PC here to to do the phones and It's decided that it's gonna work for like about 25 minutes.

And then it's just gonna stop working at all at that point and it loses connection to the Internet. I don't know if it's you know. I'm sort of feeling here. It's a little warm, but it's not any warmer than you expect it to be so it's of course It's rather cool in this office right now anyway, so once the summer comes really be in trouble anyways, I lost I lost my phone interface, so hopefully riches is working and We can hopefully have an opportunity to talk with with Alan, so if you could bring him up Alan you there.

Yes, yes, sir. Okay. I can hear you just fine.

Islam as a Religion of Peace and the Meaning of Submission

Got a couple questions. Trying to get more familiar with Islam. You got a couple questions, and I'll let go to the source. You've been studying it lately and the first question It's really been nagging me for a long time is a lot of times you hear this bomb referred to as.

The religion of peace what the heck does that mean. Well the religion of peace? Would come from the assertion that in essence the term Salaam. Are you familiar with the Hebrew term Shalom? Okay Arabic is a Semitic language just as Hebrew they share many of the same roots together.

And so in the West the assertion that is made is that Islam you see the S the L and the M there? Same root means peace and so Islam is the religion of peace. The problem is long before 9-eleven and the resurgence that a lot of people really trace back to the Situation in Iran with Ayatollah Khomeini and and the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism.

When I was in seminary, and I took church history. When Islam was discussed I was told and taught and I think pretty much everybody else was too that Islam means submission and a Muslim. If you see Muslim you see SLM and whenever you see a MU at the beginning of an Arabic word.

It's a participial form and so it's one who does whatever that root refers to so a Muslim is one is who it was in subjection to submission to Allah and Islam is refers to all of those together who are in Submission to in subjection to Allah and that I was told That and I think this is remains true linguistically.

That's the I'd any idea of peace. That is in the Arabic use these words comes from the idea of a person being submitted to Allah and therefore at peace with him. But of course it is a submission that is brought about by force.

It would be the the peace that would exist when the conquering general or king Has his foot on the neck of the vanquished foe that is the peace that comes from submission. To the higher authority. So if you want to call Islam a religion of peace that is the only way in which that peace is brought about all you have to do is turn to surah 9 and I just I didn't have to comment on go get almost any English translation of the Quran.

There are some English translations that spin things more than others. In fact, I just I was going to read from a English translation I picked up yesterday at the bookstore John Meadows Rodwell's translation sort of the TN IV of Quranic translations and read.

Read any of them read surah 9 any of them and tell me what it says and it's one of the last of the surahs that Muhammad writes and therefore it is not abrogated by anything else the Prophet puts forth and You read in there.

That's the primary source of the jihad passages the fighting of those Infidels until they feel themselves submitted and pay the jizya and etc, etc.

So if they submit to their God they have peace with their God, but don't we have peace with our God through Jesus. Well, we religion of peace also.

Well, yeah I mean but but there's a vast difference between the mechanism by which that peace is brought about and this this is the real fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam is that while the the final goal in essence of both religions Is a Situation where God rules over his creation. It is the mechanism That God uses to bring about that kingdom.

That is so vastly different I've said many many times Theology matters and here's another place where you see how theology matters since Islam does not have a meaningful doctrine of sin and the depravity of man and really any any meaningful doctrine of how God can interact in a meaningful and personal fashion with his his creation then the means by which peace is brought about is External it is it is the establishment of this this Islamic pan world state that brings about Sharia law and it is the establishment of Sharia.

That is the symbol of Islamic supremacy and the establishment of the kingdom of God. How does that happen in Christianity? We have a law of God as well and Even though there are many antinomian Evangelicals today the description of the New Covenant in Hebrews chapter 8 Says that God's law is written upon our hearts.

It is internalized it is a part of the change that takes place by the Spirit of God and A person who is submitted through Jesus Christ to God is a person who has been changed not just externally You can't bring about this submission externally it is it requires the work of the Spirit of God and regeneration and the the creation of a new heart and so the kingdom of God is established first by the reign of Christ within the heart of the individual and only in the eschatological establishment of the kingdom of God does that then Become something much larger.

But it's from the inside out not the outside in and it's not established by an ak -47 or a sword or whatever other External mechanism might be in the establishment of a external law system. The reason that God's law is something that delights the heart of the individual is because of regeneration because an internal change.

Not because of some sort of external man-made Governmental establishment of Sharia or something like that.

Well, you can understand my confusion, you know after witnessing 9 -11 on television and you know terrorism in the name of Allah around the world almost every day and. Then I'm supposed to think of Islam as a religion of peace.

Maybe not peace with fellow man, but maybe peace with their God.

But you know, you can understand. Oh certainly and you know when you listen to the the Western representatives of Islam and you listen to how they present their perspectives Inevitably there is going to be confusion in the part of a Western observer.

Because of the differences of what Islam looks like when it is the minority which it most certainly is here in the United States and when it is the majority and The fact that you can go online pretty much each and every day and you can find Transcriptions of Arabic programming where you hear the most outrageous things being said by Imams in Islamic countries and then contrast that with the contradiction of those statements in Western countries is one of the reasons why there is such confusion on this particular subject is because what Islam says when it's the minority is Different from what Islam says when it is the majority and that's where the source of confusion comes from for for individuals.